


Here....

by Spindlly, TheUntitledWritingProject



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3, Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Fluff, just a lot of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26938207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spindlly/pseuds/Spindlly, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUntitledWritingProject/pseuds/TheUntitledWritingProject
Summary: A night at the Third Rail turns a bit more serious as Hancock and Eliza recall their worst nightmare turned reality to an unsuspecting Charon and Penny...
Relationships: Charon (Fallout)/Female Lone Wanderer, John Hancock/Female Sole Survivor
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Here....

The lights and sounds of the third rail seemed so far away, pushed and pulled into a distorted rhythm that seemed almost comforting for what was normally a home for the lonely and broken. The soft chill of Boston in the winter barely seemed to sink in, despite the underground bar usually freezing over as the snowy months set in. The world felt warm though, the air lively as Hancock laughed loudly across from him, arm slung around Eliza’s shoulders as she glued herself to his side, the two a near picture of prewar bliss, save his ghoulish complexion and the rifle strapped her back, straight as her spine. Charon shook his head, lips nearly turning up at the display. The rest of the bar took no notice. The first family of Goodneighbor were never exactly private about their affections, free to be as those in the capital never seemed to be…together. 

He felt Penny shift beside him, taking another sip from the Nuka Cola the two had placed in front of her, smiling ever so slightly into her bottle. He’d never seen here this relaxed, not in the three years since she’d wandered into the Underworld and plopped down enough caps to feed a blasted settlement for a month. Quick and curious, she’d somehow managed to struggle through the world above with about as much grace as a newborn brahmin, but she’d made it all the same. They’d made it. But he’d never seen her like this.

The caution he was so used to finding in her walk, her words, her breath had strayed a little, sinking slightly into the town where anything goes and most things usually went at one point. The whole damn town was on one drug or another, whatever vice a person needed always within reach. Should be chaos. Should be anarchy. Should be a bloodbath in the blasted streets every other night. But his ghoulishness ran a somewhat tight ship for all the damn freedoms his people held. A bunch of asshats kicked out of one place or another for things they couldn’t do a thing about kept those who were here for their own devices in check. Daisy kept em fed. Kleo kept em armed. Amari kept em all remembering why the hell they were still surviving in the first place. Maybe not the most effective system, but it kept the peace most nights.

And it showed. The small laugh she let out every now and then, clean and clear as the water she’d given those idiots who would have shot her one sight just for being near him, was more than he’d ever heard in the Capital. The clear smiles and excited eyes that always shone as she browsed through whatever goods Daisy had managed to wrangle from the other growing settlements, some as far as California. The grimace she’d given after trying whatever the hell a sasparilla was for the first time. All so blasted honest the pulled warmly at his chest, all the social niceties and half-truths she’d been forced to give in the Capital gone, forgotten.

Her eyes shone here too, flickering over to him every once in a while as Hancock spun some sort of story Charon was sure had never actually happened despite Eliza’s supporting nod at each new impossibility. The two had been raving for the past hour about some theme park with a whole bunch of raiders. Charon had no idea what a cappy was and didn’t actually care. But the sheer interest pulling across her face was more than enough reason to listen. 

“So there I was…down on my coattails... watching sunshine here try to convince a protectron with a cowboy accent that she was sheriff of his here town while trying to unscrew his mainframe without him noticing..” Hancock’s gestures broadened with each word, the arm currently swung around his wife barely missing knocking her upside the head. Eliza just rolled her eyes, the sly smile across her face more than enough forgiveness for the rather excited ghoul. 

Penny was eating up every second of it, leaning forward with each new expression, eyes wide like a kid in a candy shop. As many stories as they had to tell from all the crap they got into in the Capital, he doubted she had one of a killer amusement attraction. OR had ever actually been in an amusement part once. “Why was he talking like a cowboy though?” Okay, so she had definitely never been in an amusement park.

Eliza shook her head, reaching up to draw several circles in the oddly thick dust on the table. How often did Charley clean, anyway? “Amusement parks like Nuka World tend to have themed sections. All the buildings and characters there fit that theme. We just so happened to be in the Wild West portion of the park..” she explained, crossing an X through one of the circles. “The park’s workers were mostly killed in the original explosion, but the robots programed to act like citizens in an old west holovid were still up and running.”

Charon raised an eyebrow at that, gaze flicking to the other ghoul emphatically nodding at his wife’s explanation “Mostly killed?” 

Both of their faces fell instantly…oddly. Hancock seemed to slump almost instantaneously arms falling as Eliza slid impossibly closer to him, wrapping her arm around his waist. “That’s….not necessarily something we need to discuss in here..” She murmured, voice dropping to a whisper. Ahh….so that was it…

“Ferals..” he breathed, arms folding across his chest as he leaned back. The Underworld had never been exactly keen on mentioning them either, eyes always shifting to the dark corners of the museum like they all might suddenly turn on each other. 

Hancock nodded, then shook his head, hand running along Eliza’s arm in an oddly soothing motion. Though for which one of them, Charon wasn’t sure. “Not…originally they weren’t….”

Oh….oh shit….

Penny’s eyes grew wide, almost fearful and Charon swore his own heart nearly gave out. They hadn’t talked about it, the possibility. The reason the bigots that now ran the Wasteland itself could justify shooting down any ghoul they saw above ground. The reason he had three slugs in his shoulder after their first little trip into their precious fortress. That any ghoul, at any moment, had the potential of going completely feral. “What happened...” she whispered, barely more than a breath. 

“Best we could tell…they all changed when the bombs dropped. All normal ghouls” Eliza explained, eyes shifting around the room just in case. She waved at the lady in the red dress on stage. A short, curt signal Charon couldn’t interpret until her friend nodded and started belting out lyrics to a much more upbeat, much louder song. 

“They all lost it…one by one…freaking nuts shambling around in clow costumes” the mayor hissed beside her, leaning in closer. “All except a glowing dude in a tophat that seemed in charge of them all”

“Oswald” his wife reminding him, rubbing his back gently, “But…the sprinkler system…it was spitting out some type of radioactive gas…”

“Nearly took sunshine here down a few times”

“Oh I’m a little heartier than that”

Hancock chuckled at that, planting a kiss to the top of her hair. “Tell that to the shoes you vomited all over”

“I don’t know what you are talking about..” Eliza smiled up at him, gently, slyly. “I was meerly expressing my view of your fashion sense…emphatically”

“Hey now sister…” he leaned in closer to her, hand tightening around her waist. Charon rolled his eyes.

Are you two gonna finish this story?”

Penny squeaked beside him, covering her hand with her mouth, whatever blasted tension the two had started breaking, settling into something almost….sad. 

“Yes well” the general chuckled, untangling herself from her husband’s side. “It seems that the ghouls were constantly exposed to radiation through the sprinkler system…as they kept it on all the time to keep out the raiders..” she shook her head, nearly burying it in her hands before Hancock caught her. “I’m not sure how many times raiders had been through the area. Colter’s men had enslaved the settlers and caravan’s that were there before them but I doubted that depo had been set up for long. There were almost no defenses in place when I got there.”

The lone wanderer the radio had spent so many months raving about looked down at her hands, inspecting her knuckles like she might find something on them. Like she expected blood. “People do stupid things thinking it will keep them safe” she muttered, pulling at the edges of the shirt Eliza had lent her. Charon knew why. It was white, solid and stained but soft as cotton sheets and would only cover her navel if she hadn’t had high-wasted trousers on as well. Not the blue of a vault suit. Not the solid bracers underneath the old pipboy she never took off, its worn casing in desperate need of repairs. The sounds of the buried subway car no where near those of an old vault despite both being underground. Yes…please did stupid things when they were scared. 

“Yeah… they do at that sister” Hancock nodded, taking a long swig from the bottle in front of him. “We’re pretty sure it was from the sprinkler system…but if word gets out…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. Didn’t need to. Sheer fucking panic is what would happen. The giant ghoul had heard a little bit about what happened with the weird baseball settlement, the one that had kicked out half of its citizens for having a blasted skin condition. If word got out they were right, that any ghoul could go feral, if word reached the Capital…

It would be the final excuse the Brotherhood needed to storm the Underworld itself.

To storm the Commonwealth again.

To kill every person at their relatively small table.

And half the damn world would agree with them.

Hell, Charon couldn’t help but wonder if they were right. The mental imaged flashed unbidden, mousy blonde hair caked with blood, brown eyes staring straight ahead, unblinking and unseeing… a heart, silent and still in his palms..

Something light danced across his hand, turning it until soft fingers carded through his own. Her pulse, warm and alive beat strongly against his own wrist. Those eyes stared up at him, wide and worried, lashes fluttering as she blinked slowly. Whisps of her hair framing them, clean and soft from the running water Goodneighbor had flowing through its pipes. “Hey….Nothings going to happen…”

Simple words, kind and comforting and holy hell did he want to believe them. Wanted to take them at face value, to pull her against his chest and believe that he could keep her safe there. He swallowed heavily, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding while her thumb soothed circles against his skin. The heart he always swore he didn’t know he had beat in his throat, the desire to push her away warring with the need to pull her closer. The struggle written clear across his usually expressionless face, his mouth opening and closing with words he didn’t know how to say. 

Out the corner of his eyes, Eliza leaned over to whisper in the Mayor’s ear, nodding before the two slid silently out of the booth. Charon couldn’t care less.

“Nothings going to happen..” she reiterated, the hand not tangled with his own reaching to slide gently over his weathered jaw, pushing a rough strand of dark red behind his ear. “Eliza said it herself, the sprinklers…”

“They don’t know that for sure” he countered, catching her wrist, sliding his thumb across her palm, pulling it back to where he could see it. Too soft skin slid against his own as her fingers curled, brushing against the corner of his mouth has he pulled it from his face. He couldn’t help himself, turning to plant a small kiss to her knuckles, her eyes going wide before fluttered closed in frustration. 

“No…but there isn’t any other explanation… You’ve gone well over 200 years Charon.... as have most the ghouls here…”

“That could still change boss”

“Or it couldn’t” Simple words. Oh so simple. “Charon…right now we are here”

Here, among several other ghouls just as worded about the blasted future as he was, all surviving far longer than any of em had any right to. With a whole bunch of other people who had as good a chance tomorrow dying as they do ten years from now. So simple. He nodded at her words, pressing his lips once more to the back of her hands. So simple. 

She smiled up at him for that, dragging her hand back towards her to plant a kiss against his own, still wrapped around her wrist. “Let tomorrow be tomorrow, please” she muttered against his skin. He could do nothing but nod. 

She was right. Not exactly a shocking revelation by any means. He’d just have to live with it. Watching her lips graze across his skin, eyes shining at him like he’d hung the damn moon or something, he thought he just might be able to do that. She let go of his wrist, reaching out to wrap herself around him. That clean blonde hair came to rest under his chin, his own arms dropping to fall around her in response. Around them, the music played. Magnolia had smoothed into something softer, something warmer, something almost friendly in the place the broken and the lost went. He pulled her close. No one cared. No one looked up. They were fine. They were here. 

“Hey Charon” she quizzed quietly, resting softly against his chest.

“….yes boss…”

“…Did they just leave us with the bill?”


End file.
